Times 24757: mind your homophones

Solving time : 25 minutes, 7 seconds online, though it tells me I have one mistake. I don’t know if that is a mistaken answer or a typo, we’ll find out when putting things through the blog. I came to a grinding halt and had to take a few minutes away from this in the middle, but seeing BENCHMARKS got me going again and I was able to limp to the finish (at least I though so). Let’s see if we can figure this one out then…

Aaaaah… found it – right at the very end. Way to go, George.

And away we go…

Across
1	GAM,MA: The third grade, so presumably not a good one. I clung to University by getting a lot of Cs and Ds so I’m not sure I’d call it a mediocre grade Edit: see comments – GAM is another name for a school of whales – it makes pretty regular appearances in Mephisto
4	DEBRIEFED: (FREE,BED,I’D)
9	INVERSION: the first part is IN VERS(e) (most like verse), then 1,ON
10	DRAWN: cryptic definition
11	EXEUNT: E.U. in (NEXT)*
12	CHANCERY: ER in CHANCY
14	PROVERBIAL: BAIL with the middle letters switched after PROVERB Edit: after PROVER – got key-happy
16	BOOM: double definition, and a chance to break out the old Basil Brush icon
19	GIFT: IF (poem, Kipling) in GT
20	PICKPOCKET: is this just another CD?
22	CINNABAR: C then A in INN,BAR(pubs) – a red color characteristic of mercury sulfide
23	V,E,NICE
26	A,GIST(substance)
27	IRISH STEW: IS in (WHER IT’S)* Edit – I had the E on the end of WHERE originally – of course it’s removed in the wordplay
28	FREELANCE: EEL in FRANCE – saw the FRANCE bit well before figuring it was EEL that went in there
29	T,ROUT: the first T coming from the end of WEST. I think this is referring to Schubert’s “The Trout” quintet – I got it from wordplay
Down
1	GUINEA PIG: a coin and then a piece of iron
2	MO,VIE: the first part being Modus Operandi – rather liked this clue
3	ARRANGES: alternate letters between ARNE and RAGS
4	DAIL(y): Irish house of parliament
5	BENCHMARKS: sounds like BENCH MARX (something that a socialist coach might do after a yellow card)
6	let’s omit this one
7	FRAMEWORK: R (one of the three) in (WEAK,FORM)*
8	DANDY: the ends of those words are D and Y
13	ABDICATION: A in A,B,DICTION
15	OFFENSIVE: I think this is a double definition, pointing out that one is a noun and one is an adjective
17	MOTHER WIT: M(e), OTHER(s),WIT(h) – didn’t know this phrase, but easy to get from wordplay
18	let’s omit this one too
21	PASTE,L
22	CHAFF: H in CAFF
24	INTRO: R in INTO(heading for interior)
25	SITE: here’s my typo… two definitions for CITE, but the wordplay is for SITE. I still had it as CITE. Bugger.Edit: as pointed out in the first comment, I made a mess of both my answer and the description – the definition is for SITE, with two homophone wordplays for CITE and SIGHT